A gentleman in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, who very much an-
Hoye,' the tenants of contiguous houses by keeping " harmless " snakes which occasionally stray into his neighbours' bedrooms, is defended by a correspondent of Thursday's Times on the ground that all his snakes are tame, that his boa constrictor coils itself round the children, as well as the heads of the household, in mere play, and likes to be kissed by the children, and that he (the boa constrictor) makes the most beautiful picture in the world when he decorates the lady of the house with his coils. " I sat looking for a long time, lost in wonder, at the picture before me ;— two beautiful little girls, with their charming mother, sat before me, with a boa constrictor (as thick round as a small tree) twining playfully round the lady's waist and neck, and forming a kind of turban round her head, expecting to be pulled and made much of, like a kkten." "It seems to me," he continues, "mere prejudice when snakes are not venomous to abhor them as we do,"—would he eowleimi us for disliking pet frogs or spiders trotting about the drawing-room ?—" they are intelligent and harmless." Per- hap-, but a boa constricter with a cold or a stomach-ache might possibly take to his old trick of constricting his human play- fellow, by way of getting ease, and then what help would there be ? A hermit living in a desert might fairly make pets of mikes, but in the centre of human society it is hardly humane.
Previous page
